Book Mail!

One of the books that I won from participating in the Seasons of Reading Spring into Horror Readathon has arrived! Thanks Michelle, Erin, and Raw Dog Screaming Press. Stoked to get started on this one!

Things have been crazy busy lately because we're in the process of moving into our very first home (goodbye apartment living, forever!), tomorrow I'm going to Montana on a whitewater kayaking trip for cancer survivors, and I start grad school in less than a month. AAH! Fun and crazy times!

I'll try to post again soon.

Review: Slash by Hunter Shea

                                                                                                                                                             

           ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 

Supernatural Splatterpunk for the strong-stomached.
      Slash starts out a bit slow to set up the story (at first, I thought it was a sequel), but the last half of this book is non-stop action, gore, and supernatural-based horror. I kept picturing the Hayden Resort as The Overlook Hotel- there’s even a brief mention of Jack Torrance (the film version) at one point. I had some unanswered questions about the origins of the Wraith/bad guy, but this information might have been deliberately withheld for a potential sequel and/or prequel. This was my first time reading this author’s work and I look forward to checking out his other books. 
     Thank you, NetGalley, Flame Tree Press, and the author for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Need by Helen Phillips

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 

*I won an ARC copy of this book in a goodreads giveaway and this is my honest review based on my reading experience.* 

This is a hard book to review because it’s very easy to unintentionally give things away. I would recommend reading The Need in one sitting if at all possible. I made the mistake of reading other books concomitantly so I kept putting it down and picking it back up later. That really stalled the suspense and I wasn’t immersed in the story until I’d finished the others and just focused on this book. Then I didn’t want to put it down because I thought, “Oh, I have to see if this is going where I think it’s going…” *reads on to the ending* Well…I was wrong.

There’s elements of a sci-fi and a thriller, but it’s sort of both and not really either of those. There’s some really creepy almost Donnie Darko-ish moments but there’s no guts and gore scary horror. The Need is it’s own thing which I appreciate but have to admit that I was disappointed when the plot direction I’d foreseen in my head differed so much from the one on the page. In some sense, I felt cheated by missing out on what could have happened. 

Ultimately, I think this book is about motherhood and all of the insecurities and messiness that can accompany it. One idea being: could you ever be the mother that you feel your child needs? It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it did make me reflect deeply on concepts of motherhood and/or maternalism. 

Review: Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward

I read Beautiful Bad for Houston Public Library's Reads Book Club pick for June-July.

This a well-written psychological, time-jumping thriller told mainly from the perspective of a female protagonist (a few times the perspective shifts to the boyfriend/husband, Ian). I liked how the author incorporated some of the ways that PTSD and traumatic brain injuries might affect personality and behavior in order to blur the lines between who is "good" and who is "bad" and create sympathy for all of the characters. Beautiful Bad reminded me of The Girl on the Train in some ways so if you enjoyed that book you might enjoy this as well.